Good concept, poorly executed.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Blistering performances.

Very average low budget movie about Census Agency agent stuck in your typical American rural town with crazy locals keeping their secrets, where sheriff just says "we have our own laws here". This one has a permanent population number of 436, hence the title. The origins of the mystery behind it are explained poorly and sound absurd (also, what "wicked man"?). You get the feeling "I watched all these scenes somewhere already and know all these dialogues" while watching the movie, all the cliches and dumb decisions are there.What's the real mystery is how Fred Durst ended up here, who plays a deputy sheriff. It's actually his only role in the movie which he didn't direct himself (not counting TV series). I didn't know about his involvement with the production of this film and seeing him here was a surprise.It's an OK rental if you have nothing else to watch, it actually feels looks and feels like a TV movie. The orchestral soundtrack is pleasant to listen.

I must say that reading the plot synopsis, I had high expectations from Population 436. The main gist and idea of the story sounded original and promising, plus I've never had the chance to see Fred Durst act outside Limp Bizkit's music videos.Unfortunately, the film didn't follow through. The main idea was the only thing original about it, everything else was cliché to the point of boredom. The turning of events was predictable and seemed uninspired, the characters were replicas of other characters from other such films (like The Village), and even what some might call "the twist" was obvious and without any surprises. As Horror fans, when we're able to anticipate the next move, it means the film isn't that good, that's my personal opinion.As for the acting? Charlotte Sullivan was beautiful, and that was the only thing that shined above others. The rest were regular actors with regular acting, Fred Durst was nothing special, and neither was the cinematography. I personally feel that this film really didn't live up to the potential it had, which is unfortunate.All in all? The film was fun to watch, the characters were relatable and the story managed to get you emotionally involved. But not in any way better than thousands of films I could have watched instead. So I guess this film is recommended to those who haven't yet had much experience with the Horror genre, or that aren't looking for anything special but rather just something to kill 85 minutes.

While traveling to Rockwell Falls in an assignment of the US Census Bureau, the surveyor from Chicago Steve Kady has two flat tires nearby the small town. The local Deputy Bobby Caine brings him to the town and the Mayor Grateman lodges him in a farm, where the gorgeous Courtney Lovett lives with her mother. Steve finds that Rockwell Falls, considered by the locals as the most perfect place on Earth, has the same population since 1860 and sooner he discloses the meaning and the dark secret of their creed of solidarity and steadfastness. Now I Really Think This Movie Was Horrible Because It Was Too Far Fetched The Whole 436 Suits God I Mean I Respect All Religions As I Have So Oftenly Claimed But That Is Utterly Ridiculos.Out Of The 3 Things I Look For In Movies This Only Succeeded Partially In All Of Them & They Are Dialogue, Acting & Character Development; For The Character Development It Was All For Charlotte Sullivan Who For Some Reason In Her First Scene I Mistook Her For Jennifer Connely...I Know Weird, The Dialogue Was Good Because During A Channel Flick Night I Came Across Another Christianity Horror & It Used Dialogue From A Grandfather Who Was Also A Killer "Did You Think You Could Escape The Love Of Our Lord Jesus Christ?" I AM NOT PULLING YOUR LEG! So If There Was Any Shitfilled Dialogue In This Movie I Was Immune, For Acting Some Of The Actors Were Believable I Forget Which Ones But They Were There.This Is Not My Sort Of Horror Movie But If Anyone Has Nothing Else To Watch Then I Suggest To Go Ahead.

Rod Serling really ruined it for the makers of Population 436, and the folks who make a lot of these kind of sci-fi/fantasy scary movies. He set the bar for this sort of storytelling so high that most filmmakers can't reach it, and they end up making movies that are nothing but pale, lame and bloated imitations of Twilight Zone episodes.This film is the story of Steve Kady (Jeremy Sisto), who works for the U.S. Census Bureau. He's been sent to investigate an apparent discrepancy in the town of Rockwell Falls. It seems the town's population is always reported as 436, every year, year after year, decade after decade. After getting the cold shoulder from some locals on how to get to Rockwell Falls, Steve finally finds the town and promptly blows out two of his tires on a huge crater in the road. Deputy Bobby Caine (Fred Durst) shows up and somewhat reluctantly gives Steve a lift into town.It's almost immediately apparent to Steve (and anyone watching this movie) that there's something not-quite-right about Rockwell Falls, but he (and the audience) basically spins his wheels until the filmmakers finally get around to revealing the truth. They kill time by setting up a ham-handed love triangle between Steve, Deputy Caine and local girl Courtney (Charlotte Sullivan), Steve becoming concerned with a little girl named Amanda (Reva Timbers), and a lot of references to "the fever", "equilibrium" and "the union of the divine".After waiting long enough to stretch the story out to feature length, the filmmakers finally unveil the secret of Rockwell Falls, a secret you'll be able to figure out within the first 5 minutes of the movie if you think about it. It seems that God demands the town have only 436 residents. If a baby is born, someone has to die. If someone comes to town and stays overnight, someone has to die. And if anyone tries to leave, electroshock and lobotomies are used to stop them. Steve, Courtney and Amanda all want out, and the rest of the movie is about how and if they make it.This isn't a bad idea for a story, but Rod Serling had a bunch of these ideas and you can't help but notice that the folks who made Population 436 didn't do anything more with their idea in 92 minutes than Serling did in less than half an hour on The Twilight Zone. Writer Michael Kingston did nothing to work out or explore the practical, realistic implications of their idea. The problem with that is, they're not as good as Serling and they're trying to tell a story that's over 3 times longer than one of his shows. The result is a simplistic, shallow and predictable film where long stretches go by without anything happening.Director Michelle MacLaren does a professional but rudimentary job. Nothing looks that bad but her work closely resembles a student film with really good production values. Jeremy Sisto does an adequate job in a pretty generic role and Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst doesn't completely embarrass himself with his acting, but no one else in the cast is at all noteworthy.One of the things I don't understand about this movie is why it's so restrained and relatively clean cut. It is rated R, but there's very little violence or gore and the only sex scene includes just a few, furtive glances at a nipple for nudity. Cut a couple of minutes out of this film and you could practically show it on the Disney Channel. If the movie were smarter and the filmmakers were better, that wouldn't matter. But the movie isn't at all smart, the filmmakers aren't that good and in those circumstances, it's generally a good idea to pack in as much killing, dismemberment and naked bodies as you can. If nothing else, there's always an audience for that stuff.Population 436 isn't an awful film. It's more than a little boring and is barely mediocre even at its best. If the filmmakers had realized that, they might have been able to juice it up enough to make it worth watching. They apparently thought they made a much better film than they actually did, so they ended up with something worse than they could have.